Developmental plasticity of multisensory circuitry: how early experience dictates cross-modal interactions.

Normal sensory experience is necessary for the development of multisensory processing, such that disruption through environmental manipulations eliminates or alters multisensory integration. In this Neuro Forum, we examine the recent paper by Xu et al. (J Neurosci 32: 2287-2298, 2012) which proposes that the statistics of cross-modal stimuli encountered early in life might be a driving factor for the development of normal multisensory integrative abilities in superior colliculus neurons. We present additional interpretations of their analyses as well as future directions and translational implications of this study for understanding the neural substrates and plasticity inherent to multisensory processing.